Lit: a memoir

Lit : a memoir / Mary Karr.— New York : Harper, 2009.
386 p. ; 24 cm.
Sequel to Cherry
ISBN: 9780060596989

1. Karr, Mary – Biography. 2. Poets, American – 20th century – Biography. 3. Recovering Alcoholics – United States – Biography. 4. Women college teachers – United States – Biography.

811.54

In the prologue to her memoir Cherry, Karr describes herself leaving her childhood home, an oil refinery town on the East Texas Gulf Coast and striking out for the dream of California surf. When it quickly proves to be an impoverished and frightening nightmare, she heads for college and desperately tries to fit in. Unsuccessful at this, she tries drinking and running off. Fortunately she finds poetry and a mentor, and throws herself, reluctantly at first, into the literary life. A decade later however, marriage to another poet from a wealthy family, publication, academic success, and motherhood fail to bring her the escape she’s seeking. So she finds herself living for the anesthetic comfort of the bottle, but the bottle let her down.

“At the end of my drinking, the kingdom I longed for, slaved for, and a the end of each day lunged at was a rickety slab of unreal estate about four foot square—a back stair landing off my colonial outside Cambridge, Mass. I’d sit hunched against the door guzzling whisky and smoking Marlboros while wires from a tinny walkman piped blues into my head. Through hours there were frequently spent howling inwardly about the melting ice floe of my marriage, this spate of hours was the highlight of my day.” (Page 7)

Recovering alcoholics often say that there are only three possible outcomes of their addiction: You either end up locked-up, covered-up, or sober-up. Fortunately for American letters and herself, Karr sobered up.